A Place Without Mirrors
by something someone said
Summary: Lithuania is a on a farm, wondering how the harvest will turn out, how he'll make peace with his surroundings and why Poland needs a bucket of paint and some wood.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Hetalia.

A/N: While looking at pictures or slideshows I saw a fanart of Lithuania and Poland in a field. There are probably many pictures like the one I saw of those two, but it was part of the inspiration for the this short piece. And even though the two aren't my favorite hetalia pairing, Poland and Lithuania's relationship is one I can identify with in the Hetalia-verse. So here it is, my excuse for writing these characters without much of a context.

**A Place without Mirrors**

Poland...

I'm not quite sure how to describe you in one word. Just being around you is indescribable most of the time, it's only when I'm away from you for long that I start to see the world for the place it truly is. But when I'm with you I can forget about the world for a while, and just appreciate all the mysteries that you are: scatterbrained, kind, dense, ingenious, calm, hysterical, shy, ridiculous- either a woman trapped in a man's body or a man trapped with a woman's mind. A very _eccentric_ woman that is. You never fail to amaze me.

I think that might be the reason I've been friends with you for all these years. It's not just because we live so close together, or because we've had a lot of the same history together. It's that I enjoy being around you.

If that can explain how I can put up with a guy as perplexing as you are, then so be it. I mean, I've been around worse.

However, sometimes even _you_ get to be a little too much. Like when I asked you what you were doing with a plank and some paint earlier today.

"It's a surprise, it'll totally ruin it if I tell you."

"Fine, have it your way."

We've been living together at an old farm house for the past season, planting rye for the harvest. The field stretches out beyond my point of view. It is a green, but yellowing now, sea under a blue sky and one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. At sunset the light paints it orange so it looks like a fire that could warm the soul if you let it. You said I was being too sentimental when I told you that, but when I looked you had that warm expression on your face and that same fire in your eyes. So maybe you agree with me. Or maybe you just thought I was being hilarious.

It isn't until after I eat lunch that I discover the _reason_ why you needed that wood and paint. Right in plain sight of the kitchen door is a pathway cut through the rye, a tunnel that has bent the stalks rendering them lifeless and useless. Next to that tunnel is a sign which says "enter" in pink paint. It even has a little arrow pointing to the pathway, as if I wouldn't know.

You're always doing things like this. If it isn't for planting cabbage in autumn when it's bound to go to seed faster it's painting your entire room with watercolors.

"I just can't see how he does things like this," is my first response, trying very carefully not to break the rye more than it already is. Why I go through this tunnel I doubt I'll ever know, but soon I'm saying, "he really destroyed a good section of it," eventually leading to "honestly, sometimes I think that guy's hopeless," and with "I don't know where he'd be without me," I set off with more determination through the tunnel to find and reprimand you for destroying the harvest.

When you do things like this, I don't know where you're leading me. You could just tell me what you want and save me a lot of sweat and anxiety. Just like that time after that battle.

"That Sweden guy was like totally scary," you say.

"What? But you were holding your own out there," I say.

"But like- it started to feel like he was going to shoot lasers out of his eyes or something."

"Lasers?"

"Oh My God. Let's stop talking about it already. Just bringing it up is so totally scary. Can you just hold me for a while?"

"Uh... sure."

"Just like this."

You crawl on my lap and sit sideways, placing your head on my shoulder. Does it really scare you that much? Just why are you so afraid of others? I don't understand it.

"There. There," I try to comfort you from what ever it is that's bothering you, but you don't say anything and that makes me really worried. It's only when I hear your soft snores that I realize your weight is killing me and I can't get out of this position without disturbing you.

The pathway through the rye bends here and there. There is no form to the way you roamed through it. Were you trying to find something, or just weaving your intentions into the stalks? What you have done has caused irreparable damage to the crop this season, I hope you know that. Bent rye does not grow, least of all sideways.

Finally I get to the end of it and find you, lying down in the circle of your destruction.

"Poland! There you are! What are you doing?"

You don't respond for a moment. "Poland?"

"Hey Liet."

It was the first time I saw you like that, the sky reflected in your eyes.

No.

It wasn't the first time.

"Poland! Say something! I tried to tell you!"

"Liet?"

"Yeah, it's me Poland."

"Heh. I hate it when you see me like this. It's totally lame."

"Are you okay?"

"It's not necessary... whatever you're doing..."

"Poland!"

I just remember the words from that day and the minor details. I can't remember how bad your injuries were or if I could have done anything to help. But I shake those event from my mind. Not even if you _were_ injured right now would you have an excuse for damaging the crop.

"I was just looking at the sky. It's different, you know, than when you're standing. There's somehow more of it."

They have a word for that. Peripheral Vision. But I don't feel like telling you that. I'm thinking more of how I'm going to salvage the rye.

"Liet."

"Yeah?" I'll have to harvest the damaged parts early.

"Wouldn't it be awesome if people were clear like that sky is right now?"

"Huh?"

"Like, I mean, if you knew what they wanted right away. Even what they felt like right away. Then you wouldn't have to waste your time with all that other lame stuff. You'd get straight to the good parts. Or maybe you would know that there were actually good parts to begin with."

I am only half paying attention to you as I survey our field. "The good parts huh?" I am looking for those good parts of crop not yet destroyed among the bent ones. Few and far between.

"Yeah. Like you'd meet someone and you'd totally understand each other and so you'd hit it off right away. No more guessing. No more being disappointed."

I picked up a broken stock and it falls right back down.

"Poland! Why did you destroy so much of the crop?"

"I told you. I was looking at the sky."

"Why couldn't you have done that some place else."

You sit up and glare at me. "Liet. It's totally lame if you do it out in the open. You have to get to a really secluded place to look at the sky."

I just don't understand you at all.

"How am I going to reach the quota like this. It's a bad year as it is. If it goes on like this we'll have to plant in winter too."

"Hello! Broken stalks totally grow back. Like crop circles. Aliens do it."

It's not aliens. There are no such things as aliens who make crop circles. Have you been talking to America again?

"I'm going now. You have fun with your aliens," I tell you. I'm afraid I'll get too mad if I stay here. And I came here to relax dammit!

"Silly! I made this, not aliens. And I wanted you to come too. That's why I made the sign."

I just walk out of your maze, not sure what to do with you, like after we defeated Prussia.

"Oh My God. Liet. You were so awesome!"

"But you really did the hard job, being the distraction for Prussia and all."

"Yeah, but you totally came in at the last minute. Even I was starting think you'd like really left or something."

"Now why would I do that?"

"Dunno."

"Well, anyway we won. Let's celebrate."

And then you kissed me.

"What was that for?"

"Well, we are like celebrating and all."

"Still..."

"Oh My God. Lighten up!" You hit me on the shoulder. Hard.

"You don't have to hit me."

"You're such a baby!"

But you were the one that walked off, as if the party had suddenly lost any interest it might have had for you.

When night comes I still don't see you come out of the maze. What could you be doing in there? Aren't you cold? Or hungry at least? I can see why you like being out there under the stars though. There's a depthless calm that surrounds this place, even when it gets close to night. I think I am lightening up right now because I like our days here. I think, after everything, I can finally appreciate just living for myself again. This place is beautiful. There is always a constant music in the air that runs in harmony with the rye and your innocuous laughter. The wind makes this old farmhouse an instrument, playing through the hallows of the eaves when I sit down to listen after a hard day weeding. In the night there are whispers of the rye, as soft as your breathing and in the morning the birds and roosters wake you to-

"Hey Liet."

You stumble in lazily through the kitchen door. Your hair is filled with leaves, a fond reminder of where you have probably slept the whole day- or thought- or plotted on how to finally attach engines to your soil so that you might finally blast off.

"Poland."

"Don't be mad at me, okay. I just- I don't know why I did that. If I knew you would have gotten mad I wouldn't have done that. It just seemed like something to do at the time. I mean, I tried to be careful coming out of it, just so I wouldn't break anymore of the field. That's why I waited until night time. You know, plants grow in the day so there's probably less of them to break at night."

And there you go again, with your illogical logic.

"No. I'm not mad anymore."

"Great. What did you make to eat, anyway? I'm starving."

"It was your turn to cook tonight."

"Oh jeez, I forgot. Sorry." You run out the kitchen door before I can even ask where you are going.

I ease into the kitchen chair. You're always in my life one moment and out the next, like the nervous shaking I used to do. Everyone else is always so surprised when you start talking because it's not what they expected. I think that's why they don't get you that well. But it bothers me that I might be the one person who understands you the best. Because I've never understood you at all.

But I like this old farmhouse and its simplicity. The chairs are worn and even though they're wooden they're soft. The beds on the other hand are hard, but after working all day I can sleep easily. This place is like a picture out of an old book, rustic, charming and backwards. There aren't even any mirrors, which you were horrified to find out once we came here. "Don't worry," I said, "it's only the two of us" but you looked worried and disappointed so maybe I shouldn't have said that.

In half an hour you come back with a clamor that awakens me from snoozing. You are trying to fit a wheelbarrow through our kitchen door, the contents of which are filled with the broken rye.

"Hey Liet. Can you give me a hand?"

"You can't bring a wheelbarrow in here!"

"Why not?"

"Well, first of all it isn't going to fit through the door."

You contemplate the task for a second and then take your wheelbarrow around to the side of house. You knock on the window and I go outside to tell you of another way of doing it.

I help you put the rye into baskets and then transport them to the table, and when there isn't enough table, the chairs.

By the time we are finished I am too tired to cook anything, much less eat it, and I can tell from your vacant stare that the same is true for you.

"Let's just sleep."

You collapse on your bed with your clothes still on, leaves still in your hair. I move to my bed and start undressing.

"Listen Liet."

"Yes?"

"I'm really sorry okay. I made you do all that work and it was just so stupid of me to have done that in the first place."

"Don't worry about it."

"I'm always causing trouble for you and I hate it."

"You're not."

"I don't know why I do it."

I am buttoning up my night shirt.

"It just seems so unfair to you."

I sigh. "Can we just stop talking about this? I want to sleep."

"Okay. Just, you better tell me you're not mad at me."

"I'm not."

"'Kay. Goodnight Liet."

"Goodnight."

I'm always grateful when I wake up from a dreamless night, or from a night that I can't remember my dreams from. I want my dreams sucked into the void that is the night so that I can roll over in the morning and start a completely blank streak, or is it slate?

But at this moment I want to remember some things. Especially things about you.

I cook eggs and rye in the morning so that your mood might lighten up. I think it's funny when I wake up before you, because you always find some reason to wake me up.

It's nice staying here with you. But you don't have to treat me like a child. You might think that melancholy follows me everywhere because of what I've been through. You might think I'm a tragic sort of person and have to act the way I do to just to irritate you. You might have thought that in that rye field I was mad at you because I've been ignoring everything you've set out to do since we got here.

You're wrong if you're thinking that.

"You're up?"

You walk in, tired but well rested. There are leaves in your hair and I wonder where they came from. Probably when you walked into that tunnel. I told you about the mirrors, didn't I?

"Yeah. I'm making eggs and rye."

You smile. "I'm kind of hungry actually." You can't sit because there are baskets of rye all over the kitchen, so instead you stand and smile at me.

"Hey." You say.

"Hey." I say.

When I finish cooking the eggs and the rye I put them on plates and we eat standing up.

"Another one of your genius plans." You say.

"All of my plans are genius." I say.

And you smile, and a bit of yolk comes out of your mouth. I want to kiss you but I'm not sure you're ready yet, so I just pull a leaf out of your hair.

Sometimes you're just so dense, Liet!

And yet I'm not quite sure how to describe you in one word. Just being around you is indescribable most of the time, it's only when I'm away from you for a long period of time that I start to see the world for the place it truly is. But when I'm with you I can forget about the world for a while, and just appreciate all the mysteries that you are: scatterbrained, kind, dense, ingenious, calm, hysterical, shy, ridiculous. You never fail to amaze me.

I think that might be the reason why I've-

I won't tell you. You'll have to figure it out for yourself.

**The End**

**A/N:** Just in case you're wondering, there was a perspective switch from Lithuania to Poland. You can probably find out when it happens, but the first time around you're not meant to. So tell me- confusing? generic? or just too out there?


End file.
